Big Boys Don't Cry
by DramionePerfected
Summary: ONESHOT! When Harry's greif for Sirius becomes out-of-control, it takes everything for Harry not to admit it's ok to cry. Rated for suggested suicide.


_**Big Boys Don't Cry.**_

**A/N: Inspired by a mix of the title of Boy George's autobiography **'Take It Like A Man' **(I've never read it, but I'd like to), Edward Scissorhands, and, obviously, the infamous scene where Sirius passes through the Veil. Can't be arsed to come up with a nice witty **disclaimer (It _**IS 02:05 **_**am in England, y'know), so I'll just say I own nowt. One-shot Harry/Sirius - but no slash. I fail at slash. Its just a random angsty fic about Harry grieving. Innabit, peeps**_**. Dedicated to Cathy Cassidy, whose one-liner in her book **__'Lucky Star' __**features as the title of this fic.**_

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(H)**_

_**I wish that I could smile. Of course, I can still SMILE… but it's not real. I doubt anything is real, anymore. What I really want is to see is HIM smiling, like he did those few empty months ago, and make me forget about the world, and what it's doing to me now .**_

Sirius was never a 'picture person', at least not when I knew him. In a past life, in a life before Azkaban and the Wizarding Wars, in an age of carefree innocence, there were hundreds of photos taken of him - laughing, joking, posing - now yellowed and crumbling on the ancient 70's Polaroid's. As Sirius grew old, he ran a mile at the sight of a camera - he didn't want anyone to see what he had become: a tired, lined, ruin of a man, instead of the vibrant, cheeky teenager the paper images showed. Little had changed inside: there was still a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face, and that's what mattered to the rest of us.

Trying to preserve it was the hard part. Towards the end he spent most of his time sulking in his room with Buckbeak, and when he did eventually emerge he was always on edge, running from something that wasn't there. Eventually we caught him, at Christmas, laughing madly in the kitchen at something Lupin had said. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was to me. It was the last picture ever taken of my godfather.

That photograph of Sirius is in the Room of Requirement as we speak, hidden amongst the 'Wanted' posters, and the original Order list, and all the other things that were somehow meant to inspire me and the rest of the DA, but instead ended up shielding us from the truth, and getting us hurt. He was supposed to have been a substitute father, but we had only shared a mere two years with each other. There should have been more time, more laughs, more whispered conversations into two-way mirrors and common-room fireplaces in the dead of night, not even about anything particularly important, just talking so we could hear the sound of each others voice. Yet all I have now are the memories, a handful of letters and photographs and an ache, an empty, hollow ache that pierces my chest and stings my eyes and makes me wonder what would have been if it was me that had gone, not him.

I'm sitting by the lake now, leaning against the old birch tree with the libraries copy of _'Staggering Spirits: A Century of Spectrology Studies in the Wizarding World'_. I keep looking desperately for a way out, or a way to bring him back, a loophole in the system, but it's no use. Now he has passed though the veil , he is gone forever… that is, until I join him. I stand on the tree stump, check for students who might stop me along the deserted shoreline, and raise the end of my tie to the highest branch I can reach. I stare up at that branch until my eyes blur; I feel as though the guilt is ripping me in two, and all I can hope is the tie will act as an efficient noose. But before I can test it, I slip and land face-down in the long grass, inches from the heavy book. I stand up quickly, trying to compose myself, and I chicken out when I hear my name being called.

"_Harry!" _I turn to see Neville run towards me, tripping over himself at least twice before handing me an envelope. "From - Dumbledore-" he wheezed, scarlet in the face.  
Back in the privacy of the boys dormitories, I opened the letter. Out fell a Polaroid, but it wasn't one I recognised.

It was a photo of Sirius and I from the start of last summer, when I had first gone to Grimmauld Place. We looked sullen at the prospect of being photographed, but our eyes were glinting with laughter. I glared at the photo-me, so jealous of the one that had a godfather to care for him, the one who didn't know what dangers lay ahead. The most torturous thing of all, though, was the sight of Sirius with his arm around me, holding me close, like a brother… like a son.

"Love you, Sirius," I choked, before setting down the photo. I rush to the window, my head boiling, and stick it outside to cool in the light summer shower. After a while, I walk back to my bed, and try to convince myself all over again that the wet on my face was the rain, and not something else entirely. _After all, I am a big boy now. Big boys don't cry._

_Tada! The product of procrastination and insomnia. I hope you like! R&R! Review! Pwease? Muchluvy'all, DramionePerfected xxx_


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